Against Intellectual Monopoly Read Online Free PDF

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    10. U.S. Patent No. 6,219,694 (filed May 29, 1998).
    11. In re Napster, Inc. (9th Cir.).
    12. Manes (2004).
    13. Lessig (2004).
    14. Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995), p. 290.
    15. The Economist (2001), p. 42 (italics added).
    16. Information on U.S. patent law can be found at the U.S. Patent Office Web site
(http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm accessed February 23, 2008). In addition
to utility and design patents, there is also a third class of patent, the plant patent.
Like a utility patent, a plant patent lasts twenty years.
    17. The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act can be found online at http://library.
thinkquest.org/J001570/sonnybonolaw.html (accessed February 28, 2008), and the Berne Convention on Copyright can be found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/
treaties/berne/overview.html (accessed February 28, 2008). A useful discussion of
fair use, including parodies, is Gall (2000).

    18. U.S. Constitution, art. 1, sec. 8. The U.S. Constitution, not being copyrighted, is
found online at various places, such as http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution.
    19. The $218 movie was Tarnation and the information, from BBC News, is at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3720455.stm.
    20. Machlup (1958), p. 80. He nevertheless concluded that we should keep the patent
system. We discuss his position further in our conclusion.
    21. For the 2003 Lawrence R. Klein lecture, see Boldrin and Levine (2004b). See also
Selgin and Turner (2006).
    22. Scherer (1965).

     

TWO
Creation under Competition
    The basic conclusion of this book is that intellectual monopoly - patents,
copyrights, and restrictive licensing agreements - are unnecessary. Always
beware of theorists bearing radical ideas - most ideas are bad, and most
theories are wrong. This book may be yet another entry in that long list of
confused and confusing dreams.
    Therefore, we must first and foremost convince you that our ideas are
firmly grounded in facts and practice. Most innovations have taken place
without the benefit of intellectual monopoly. Indeed, the system of intellectual monopoly as it exists today is of recent vintage - some parts of the
current system are only a few years old, and their damaging effects are already
visible and dramatic.
    No gardens of utopia, then, but the fertile fields of practical experience,
as illustrated by thriving markets without intellectual monopoly - that is
what this and the next chapter are about.
Software
    In spite of being all around us, facts are often invisible because we look
at them with wrong-shaded glasses. Look closely at the computer on your
desk. You see a mouse, a keyboard, and, on your screen, a bunch of different
overlapping windows with word processors, spreadsheets, instant messengers, and a Web browser through which you can access a vast array of
information on a great diversity of subjects. At the end of the Second World
War - sixty years ago - digital computers did not exist, nor, of course, did
the software that makes them work. In few industries has there been such
extensive innovation as in the software industry - and few technologies have
changed our way of life as much. Will it surprise you to learn that virtually
none of the innovations in this industry took place with the protection of intellectual monopoly? Our tour of the hidden world where innovation
flourishes under competition starts here, in the software industry.

    We read about Amazon suing Barnes and Noble for patent infringement -
and being sued by IBM for the same - and we do not know whether to laugh
or to cry. We find Microsoft hinting that it will sue us for patent infringement
if we use GNU/Linux instead of Windows.' It seems as if no industry is as
hemmed in with intellectual monopoly as the software industry. But it was
not always like this. It turns out that over the past two decades, the software
industry has "benefited" from massive changes in the law, legislated by that
duly elected